Understanding CTR on content recommendations
Click-Through Rate (CTR) for Teads measures the percentage of page views that resulted in a user clicking on a content recommendation unit.
CTR = (Clicks ÷ Page Views) × 100
The Teads card shows two separate CTR figures — one for organic traffic and one for paid traffic — because the two audiences behave very differently.
Organic CTR — what it tells you
Your organic CTR reflects how relevant and engaging the Teads recommendations are to your core audience. A higher organic CTR means the content recommendations being surfaced to your regular readers are well matched to their interests — this drives more clicks per visit, which directly increases Teads revenue.
Paid CTR — what it tells you
Paid CTR measures how engaged the audience being driven to your site through paid distribution actually is. A paid CTR that is lower than organic CTR is completely normal — paid audiences are new to your site and may not yet have the same affinity for your content as your organic readers.
Factors that affect CTR
- Number of recommendations shown — more recommendations give users more to choose from
- Recommendation relevance — the quality of the match between your audience's interests and the content being recommended
- Page load speed — users who leave before the page fully loads are counted as a page view but not a potential click
- If your organic CTR has dropped over several weeks, check whether there have been any changes to the number of recommendation units on the page.
- Your Account Manager can advise on placement optimisation if organic CTR is below expectations.
See also: Organic vs paid traffic · Teads performance explained